Game reviews – Page 7 – Savior Gaming

Duckside PS5 Review

Duckside (Early Access) was sent my way by TinyBuild, and the game is honestly the definition of mixed feelings for me. I always appreciate being sent games, and as a person who loves survivor games, this was a nice treat. If you ever played The Forest or DayZ, you know what to expect here. The standard PvP and PvE stuff applies. You build a base, scavenge for supplies, cook food, raid bases, either PC or NPC.

This game, however, has the twist that you are a duck. The added feature that you can fly from the very start is also pretty cool. Everything honestly functions as it should, and there aren’t any weird glitches or anything. There is just one major issue that I have with the game.

I have never seen anyone play it. I mean that quite literally, after being sent the game early and building numerous bases ( all of which, for some reason, just disappear when I sign out and come right back in), every server was just empty. One time I randomly came across a sleeping duck that I killed and got starter equipment from.

Checking Steam views reveals that fewer than 70 people are playing as I write this, with 82 being the peak for the last 24 hours. The game is fun, and at $15, it is well worth the money, but with no player base on Steam, be wary that it could quickly become a ghost town on console as well. It is still a 7/10 experience, however. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Grim Trials Steam Preview

Grim Trials is an upcoming game from Glory Jam that they were nice enough to send me a preview of to check out. I have to say it is coming along very well. For a game that isn’t fully finished and still has some time to cook, so to speak, the combat is very fluid.

Each weapon has a unique weight and feel to it, with some swords being quick and easy to manage, while others are bigger, scythes and hammers being slower and needing better timing while hitting for more damage. The dodge function can’t be spammed and needs to be thought about.

The power-ups also each have meaning. Do you take the extra attack speed, or do you want your dodge to do some damage as you leave the area? There is no wrong answer, and your weapons and armor do factor into your decisions.

Each death is truly a new beginning however. With the souls Avelin collects as a new reaper, she can unlock permanent upgrades, but just as important, she collects ingredients that can be turned into new weapons, armor, and potions. These are just as important as any other decision you make, possibly even more important.

For a game that’s not quite finished yet, it has a pretty impressive level of polish to it, and finishing the demo does grant you access to a weapon recipe called a Soulforge Hammer. So definitely go check that out. It currently sits at an 8/10 experience for me. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Plan B: Terraform Steam Review

Plan B: Terraform is pretty calm and going, but far from a simple game sent to me by the fine folks over at Gaddy Games. The concept is simple. With Earth no longer being in very good shape, take this newly discovered planet and turn it into something humans can live on. You will do this in various ways. Start small with mining the resources that can be used to build factories. These factories can be used to build different buildings that eventually lead to things like greenhouse gas generators or to dig up ice to make rivers.

Now, if you are wondering if this only matters in the background, it doesn’t. There are shifting weather patterns; it will eventually start to rain on your planet, for example. (hopfully) And like many games before it, the main goal here is to automate as much of it as possible. Think Factorio without all the stuff trying to kill you.

But is the game good? Honestly, the game has Mostly Positive reviews and Steam and rightfully so. The game looks nice and plays well. The tutorial isn’t bad, but admittedly could be better, but it will get you to where you need to be. The game, however, is very much a mileage will vary situation. I didn’t really enjoy my time with the game, and that is very much on me. As much as I normally enjoy games like this, I just couldn’t get into the flow of this one. It isn’t that I couldn’t figure out what to do; I absolutely could. I just didn’t find any joy in doing it. It is still a 7/10 game, and if you enjoy games like this, it is worth playing. It just isn’t for everyone. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Quartet Steam Review

Every so often, I come across a game and I think, damn, I need to play that game. Not because it looks amazing graphically. Just because it looks like one of those games I used to play when I was a kid. You remember the type, you would rush home after school, pop it into your Super Nintendo, and just lose yourself until your parents inevitably said, “Hey, time for dinner,” or “Get to bed.”

Quartet on Steam (consoles coming Q4) is that game, and the great people over at Something Classic Games were kind enough to send me a copy to check out.

The first thing to get out of the way is the combat; it is very fluid and easy to get into. Nothing fancy is going on here either. If you love old-school turn-based RPGs where your strategy matters, the combat for Quartet is something you are going to enjoy. It clicks all the boxes. Exploiting enemy weaknesses, defending to lower damage, restoring AP (ability points), buffing your characters, and debuffing enemies. Most battles, you can just power through but bosses and higher difficulties, these buffs and debuffs will make or break your battles.

Speaking of battles, this game won’t waste your time with random battles. You can see the enemies on screen, and if you feel like you need to level up, you can usually find more to fight, but mostly, you will always be at an appropriate level to get where you need to go. I rarely say this about a game in 2025, but Quartet really tries and succeeds at respecting your time. Maps aren’t small, but they also aren’t huge for no reason.

This brings me to one last point. The story, you guys know, I am not going to go into a ton of detail about the story because I don’t do spoilers. Just know the story deals with magic, a government conspiracy, and a poor cook named Ben who just wanted to go to work. The game starts by letting you choose between one of four characters to play as for their introductory story. While you play through all of them, I recommend starting as Ben. He doesn’t have the best story exactly, but what he does have is the best mixture of story and humor, and that is where this game shines.

There are a few things I would have liked to have seen, maybe some more interactions between certain characters, but truly, for a game that you can beat in about 20-25 hours, I understand what they were going for. Something they may have left out in favor of a shorter experience, and I can’t be mad about that. This was a 9/10 experience for me, and I will be playing through this again. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Triangle Stategy PS5 Review

Triangle Strategy was recently more or less shadow-dropped onto Xbox and PS5 by Square Enix, much to the surprise of fans. Triangle Strategy tells the story of 3 great powers on the continent of Norzelia, starting at a time of an uneasy peace that quite frankly won’t last long.

You, the player, will control the decisions of one section of the great power of Glenbrook, House Wolfortt. Now I will say this: if you have this game on the Switch or PC, there is no reason to buy it on PS5 or Xbox unless you want some minor quality of life improvements over the Switch version. I didn’t even notice them; I only discovered them when I looked them up to write about them.

The combat in this game is beautiful, most battles feel unique, and the ones that don’t aren’t meant to. On the higher difficulties, the smallest mistake can be devastating, and even on the lower level,s battles are still a rewarding experience.

The story itself is a Miles May vary situation. If you love a classic war story full of intrigue, betrayal, well-done ( though admittedly somewhat easy to see coming) swerves, you will love the story.

The biggest issue comes in pacing, and you will see this time and time again, and in many reviews. The pacing for this game is atrocious at times. You will, in one instance, spend 45 minutes just reading, then get hit with a battle, just to go back to reading. Then you may get 2 solid battles in a row and some nice dialogue, and another battle, and you are feeling great, the pace is perfect. Then you hit with what feels like hours of dialogue. I found myself leveling up characters in the mock battles just to break up the story that I loved, just for the break.

Now, long-time readers know that I only assign numerical scores to games that companies send me, and I doubt you will ever see me assign a number to a SE game. This is more of a recommendation vs a no recommendation situation. Of course, you should buy this game. If you are reading this, you likely waited years for it to arrive on consoles. Well, it is here, and it is fantastic. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Hogwarts Legacy

The dream of many has come true: you’ve been accepted into the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Set nearly a century before the Boy who Lived would enter its walls, we play as a newly discovered prodigy first setting foot into the school while a goblin revolution looms in the background.

As a kid into my young adult years, I loved the world of Harry Potter. I found the lore and worldbuilding fascinating while not really being too invested in Harry himself. While the personal politics of J.K. Rowling have soured my taste for Potter, I was curious if all the hype around the project was warranted.

First, I will say the game excels at bringing Hogwarts to life. The castle is a breathtaking marvel to explore; fans of the books and movie are in for one hell of a treat. It was really cool to make friends, each with their own interesting sidequests, and actually attend classes. There is a vast landscape outside of the castle into Hogsmeade village, the Forbidden Forest, and more. For a while, I had a blast exploring all I could. The game offers a lot of character customization options and there are plenty of spells to learn- including the Unforgivable Curses (you can bet your ass I learned those puppies). The game has plenty of Wizarding World fan service…

However, this game gets incredibly stale and becomes a slog once the wonder wears off. Combat essentially boils down to Arkham-lite; the Unforgivable Curses break the game if you want to cruise through the last third of it. The main story is meh. The friend questlines are more interesting than the main game’s. One huge issue I had is that the game is overly stuffed with fetch quests and scavenger hunts for pointless collectables. Given the vast bestiary and enemy pool they could have drawn from, enemy types are pretty limited. There isn’t much Hogwarts life at Hogwarts Legacy- classes, dueling club, races all end quickly enough. You can pick your house, but it has no weight to the story or how the characters react to you. After the first ten hours, I felt like I was merely grinding to finish the story.

In the end, Hogwarts Legacy isn’t terrible but far from what it could’ve been. Potter-heads will love it, but the casual gamer will pick up on the bloat and repetitive nature of the game. I bought it for $25, which I’d say is a fair price for the fun I got out of it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ale Abbey – Monastery Brewery Tycoon

Ale Abbey is from a company called Hammer and Ravens. Long-time readers may remember that they tossed me a game called Razerewire:Nanowars that I was once the world score leader on. I no longer am.

Anyway, I picked up a copy of Ale Abby because for years they posted screenshots and sent me little pictures, and I knew I didn’t want to miss it. It took a little longer than I would have liked, but it was well worth the wait.

The concept is very simple. You get put in charge of an abbey, this abbey worships beer, so get to brewing. You quickly learn the basics of how to put together a recipe, make booze, and build rooms. This is all very easy at first. Later on, when towns want special brews with certain levels of strength or flavors made with certain ingredients, it does get a bit more challenging, but only slightly. As the game tells you when you can’t pay your bills, this isn’t the Dark Souls of tycoon games. Pick up a couple orders that give you half up front and half when it’s filled, and you are on your way back to brewing.

At no point did I ever feel like I hit a point where I felt like I was so far in the hole I couldn’t keep playing, and my first attempt, I screwed up pretty bad by not paying the bandits cash or ale to leave my carts alone. This cost me a lot of money, more than it would have cost me to keep them happy.

I also made some bad choices on when to build new rooms, which hurt my ability to brew. My second run went much smoother when I paid attention to profit margins, bandits, and when to build. Keeping some booze in the basement, only building when you have extra money lying around, and remembering this is a marathon, not a race, are the keys here.

Ale Abbey has been a pleasure to play, and will be in my rotation of games to play for a long time. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition is an old-fashioned RTS from Relic Entertainment that they were kind enough to send me. The game was originally released back in 2004, and if you have fond memories of playing this as a child and think this will bring that back, I honestly can not tell you if that’s true. I never played the original release. What I can tell you is that it has been a long time since I sat down and played an RTS where I just zoned out and enjoyed building a base, teeing up some troops, and just watching the mayhem unfold. And for that, thank you, Relic.

Now graphically, the game looks better than ever, but the game still isn’t as good as most modern games. So if you are looking for this game to be a modern masterpiece, you will be very disappointed. It is, however, a very nice upgrade from 21 years ago.

The controls are simple and easy, and are pretty much on par with any other RTS, with 90% of the controls working from the mouse as you would hope, and being able to do some quick commands from the keyboard. On easy or normal, this isn’t at all necessary, but on hard, it makes a very big difference.

This brings me to the very few complaints I have. None of them are major, but while the game will run on just about anything these days, when battles get massive, there can be some frame rate drop on slower machines. On the bright side, I did this on my laptop and was purposely seeing if I could make it happen, and it never happened during normal gameplay. Just be aware that if you are riding that line on the recommended specs, don’t try to hit that cap on troops and vehicles for the hell of it.

Next, there is no keybinding. This doesn’t bother me personally, but the few negative review on Steam seems to mention it. I get it in a way since most games have it now, but to me it isn’t worth being upset that they didn’t add it to a game that never had it to begin with, and it was never important to do anyway.

At the end of the day, the game is called the definitive edition, and for $30 you get everything the game has ever offered, in the best-looking version that has ever been offered. Does it have its issues? Yes, is it perfect? No. Is it worth the price? Absolutely. This 8/10 experience truly is the definitive experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (sn1)

During an exploration on the moon, a strange object was found. A space dumpster. Inside the long sealed empress of evil, Rita Repulsa, is unleashed to conquer Earth. Zordon, an ancient alien wizard, and his trusty robot servant Alpha 5 spring into action. Zordon has Alpha find five teenagers with attitude from the nearby city of Angel Grove. Jason, Zack, Trini, Billy, and Kimberly were chosen to become the Power Rangers, the only heroes mighty enough to stop the forces of evil…

If you grew up as a 90’s kid as Savior and I did, this show is peak nostaglia as you can get. Fighting, monsters, a colorful giant robot fighting said giant monsters- what else can any kid ask for? Hell, I was a Power Ranger for Halloween the years I wasn’t Batman. The first season with the classic 6 rangers is lightning in a bottle. The core 6 had good chemistry and for the first 60-episode season, it is it cool seeing the characters grow. For example, Billy starts as a weak, stereotypical nerd who gradually becomes the team’s tech wizard as well as a competent, confident fighter. The show’s structure is aligned with self-contained episodes but the multi-part arcs are some of the show’s highlights. The evil Green Ranger arc that introduces the legendary Tommy into the group is still awesome all these years later. The original Zords are iconic: the Mastodon, Triceratops, Pterodactyl, Sabre-Tooth Tiger, Tyrannosaurus, and the Dragon Zord. The theme is one of my all-time favorites and I still smile each time I hear it; the music all around kicks ass.

Like many show’s there’s some dull episodes here and there. Because of the use of Japanese footage, there is quite a bit of repetition to the Ranger and Zord scenes. This show looks goofy and over the top, but to a charming degree. A couple of times in the first season, plotlines do repeat, just slightly altered. As a kid I remember thinking Bulk and Skull, the comic relief bullies, were annoying, and they are, but they grew on me. Rita is a goofball villain with a shrill voice and neither her or her lackeys are competent, but damn if it isn’t funny.

In the end, Power Rangers is a fun, goofy, kids show but it’s still plenty of fun. Whether you’re riffing it with friends, or getting hyped whenever you hear “It’s Morphin Time!”, the first season of Power Rangers is a good, light-hearted time in our dreary world I recommend. May the power protect you.

Bus Flipper: Renovator Simulator Steam Review

Bus Flipper: Renovator Simulator from Polden Publishing is an odd game for me. I love that they sent it for me to check out, and I normally love games like this. The premise alone seems like it would be great: buy old buses and campers, fix them up, furnish them nicely, and sell them for a profit. How can this possibly miss?

Truth be told, the game doesn’t really miss. The game is exactly as advertised. It also doesn’t even do a single thing badly. It looks pretty decent, and it controls pretty well. The sound is nice, and even the story that goes along with it is ok.

That, however, is kind of the issue; everything about it is just painfully average. Now the game costs less than $15, so expecting anything on par with House Flipper would be unfair, but there is very little room for you to be original. The game gives you some idea of how to furnish each bus after you clean it up. The ideas they give you are honestly what you should do, not because it gets you the best price, but because it doesn’t seem to matter. I tried the first mission twice and got the same offer on my bus when I tossed a bunch of coffee cups and a plant into the yard, as I did when they were on the bus.

This brings me to my next point, the mini game for negotiations. It is essentially a bar that zips back and forth, and it is basically a game of luck. The game isn’t by any means bad; for less than $15, there is some fun to be had. There are just much better games out there. Unless your heart is truly into fixing up buses, this one is better off staying on the auction block. 5/10, best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.